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Supadookni Rezdeth
Property of Supadookni Rezdeth: If you are lucky enough to be reading this, chances are that I am dead… probably by your hands. I can’t say that I won’t have deserved it, since I likely stole from you, betrayed you, or tried to put you in the ground myself. As a man who deals in information, I like to think these finals words will enlighten you with knowledge known only to me, about a topic near and dear to my heart, myself. The world is cruel and cold, even more so to a Half-Elf orphan. A child from two worlds with no parents. Logically I know I had parents, but any memories of them have been deemed… unnecessary. My first defining memory is, well a little morbid, but it helped to create a man whose corpse you are standing over. I ran around with another orphan who called himself Skeech We would pull rudimentary scams on shop owners and pedestrians, a little food and coin, so that we may live. After a while, the locals grew more resilient against our scams and we grew hungry. This next memory is so vivid in my mind’s eye that when I close my eyes I can transport myself back there. I was lying on the ground, so weak and malnourished that the wall was the only thing keeping me upright. My clothes were soaked in grime so foul and pungent that it a deep sniff would make one unaccustomed to the stench of human waste and industrial runoff wretch. Skeech was there, and he was in better shape than myself. He had a line on a rat that was rummaging through a fallen trashcan. With the dexterous hands of a pick-pocket and the will of a being that would shortly starve to death, he had the rat in his hands and then immediately in his mouth. With his back to me, I called to him, asking for a share of the rat. Without looking back, he said to me, “If you can’t pull jobs with me anymore, you are a leech and you are worth less than nothing. You will die in this alley.” A primordial rage boiled up in my heart, one of hatred and desperation. I see a shattered pipe lying on the ground next to me, likely the result of a failed (or succeeded) Izzet experiment. The next moment I am above Skeech, pipe in hand. He doesn’t notice me as he continues to devour the rat. I raise the shattered pipe in the air with both hands and plunge it deeply into his back with a strength that rattles my bones. A wet gasp escapes Skeech’s mouth as he collapses, dead. I learned three things from this moment, I can and will do whatever I must in order to take my next breath, that people can turn their back on you just as easily as they can smile at you, and that rats are fucking disgusting. I would find myself living in a small alcove hidden in an alley just outside an Izzet laboratory shortly after my defining moment. I came to realize that the Izzet would occasionally toss the components of their failed experiments. They were useful before, maybe they would be useful now. I began to deconstruct the bits and pieces that I could scrounge. I could sell the raw metals here and there for enough coin to keep my stomach just above starving. I kept the most interesting pieces for myself, the things that piqued the interest of a child living on the streets. Since I did not know the true purpose of any of these parts, the best I ever did was find things that would reasonably fit together, sometimes with the assistance of a nearby wall as I slammed them against it. It is here that I met a young Izzet Researcher by the name of Bandersnatch. I apparently caught their attention as they were walking passed the alley. They sauntered down the ally and took a seat across from me and just stared for a moment, analyzing what they saw. A street-rat slamming metal against the wall, surrounded by other miscellaneous components. I saw realization and amusement flash across their face for an instant before returning to something unreadable. They introduced themselves as Bandersnatch and said,” Those parts look to be some of my own, I wonder why that experiment didn’t work… maybe I didn’t smash it into a wall hard enough… Wait here.” They stood up and walked down the alley and back towards the direction of the Izzet lab. I had learned my lesson in the crucible of the streets, and I certainly did not trust this stranger. I took off down the alley in the opposite direction, but slowed my step. This person was interesting… so I found my way up to the roof of the neighboring building so that I could peek back down at my alleyway hovel. The young Bandersnatch returned alone carrying a few items. Once they realized I was no longer there, they wrote something on a scrap of parchment, then set the items down and returned back down the alley and towards the laboratory. I waited on my perch for another 30 minutes before I scampered down to inspect what the young Izzet researcher left. It was a croissant, a piping hot, strong smelling brown liquid in a mug, and a bizarre metal object attached with a note that said, “The next piece…do NOT bang them together.” I sniffed the croissant warily, but that smell...that smell! My stomach quickly overpowered my wariness, and I tore into the pastry. It was like a lightning bolt ran through my body and ignited my taste buds in ecstasy. This ruined every single piece of food that I had ever thought to be edible. I next moved onto the brown liquid, it smelled strongly and tasted even stronger, bitter… but still fantastic. It was if my mind was focused for the first time in my life, the world around me seemed to slow down to a crawl. With my newly found capabilities, I picked up the new metal object and was able to quickly reason how it connected to the previous piece. Bandersnatch returned every day for the next two weeks, always with the same items. A baked good, the brown liquid, and another strange component that could be added to the device I was currently assembling. Sometimes the parts weren’t as straight forward to put together as the others, but I felt fairly confident that they were connected as they should be. I became so enraptured with this device that by the end of the second week, when Bandersnatch came by with their usual supplies, that they found me waiting for them. Again their blank façade cracked for a moment, this time with shock then delight as they saw my holding the assembled mystery device. “That’s funny, today’s part is the last.” As they held out an object filled with what I assumed to be Aether, and from what I knew it was an energy that powered most of the Izzet’s creations. I responded asking them what this device was. “Nothing yet, but with this last piece you will have built a reasonably powerful power supply… but with a few alterations, a reasonably powerful bomb.” I winced, the device in my hands suddenly felt heavy…dangerous…exciting. Bandersnatch saw me recoil and laughed, “do no worry, it’s not terribly dangerous…yet. Would you like me to show how to change that?” And that is how I started my back alley apprenticeship. Bandersnatch and I became close as they took on the role of mentor teaching me the basics of engineering. After discovering how I used to live my life with Skeech and how we used to survive through deceit and theft, they helped my hone those skills as well. They taught me how to pick a mark, gather information, move unseen, how to execute a con, and most importantly how to escape if the plan went awry. Which it occasionally did. Bandersnatch had a peculiar set of skills for an Izzet and I would shortly come to discover why. After a few years of working with my mentor, I was able to afford a cramped room in a miserable little building. However, I continued my lessons with Bandersnatch during their lunchbreak in the alley where we first met. At the point, I was in the thralls of adolescence and my focus was beginning to… wander. Bandersnatch was able to notice during our alleyway lunch/lessons as I was beginning to make mistakes that were out of character for me. It is just that the girls that would walk past were… eye-catching. Bandersnatch let out a groan and said,” You’ve become distracted, you need a more concrete objective. Meet me here tonight, 4 hours after the streetlights have come on.” And with that they walked off without any further explanation. That pissed me off, but I was also intrigued… we almost never met outside our normal hours. I arrived 1 hour before our appointed meeting time, and sat upon the same roof that I used to peer down at Bandersnatch before they had become my mentor. I waited and watched. Shortly before our meeting time a stranger wearing a dark cloak that obscured their face appeared at the end of the alley and began walking towards my former residence. Bandersnatch showed up shortly after and gave the stranger a mild greeting. They stood around for a couple of minutes before I overheard the stranger say, “Well, where is he?” in a gravelly voice. My mentor responded, “observing us” and then looked up and made immediate eye contact with me. I clicked my tongue, and muttered, “thay bastard always knew…” and I climbed down from my perch and walked warily towards the two of them. Bandersnatch introduced him as Lorahn. “Now this may come as a surprise, or maybe not. Seeing as you have always been a keen observer and quite untrusting.” Bandersnatch then glided their hand slowly across the Izzet sigil pinned to their tunic and there emerged the appearance the sigil of a Dimir operative. “Ah, you know… I always thought you were too much of a degenerate to be an Izzet researcher” I stated flatly. Bandersnatch gave a short chortle and looked to Lorahn and said, “See? He’s perfect.” I might not be a smartest half-elf in Ravnica, in fact I am rather dense in most regards, but even I was starting to piece it together… I am being recruited. After an unceremonious farewell to Bandersnatch, I went with Lorahn to begin my real training. He was not as forthcoming as my former mentor, but we got on just fine. For the next couple years, I carried on with training; martial, subterfuge, reconnaissance. Before I knew it, I was being assigned solo missions. I would lie, steal, cheat, and occasionally stab. It wasn’t until my run-in with the Hexblade that things began to turn interesting again. The mission: to extort all I can from some puffed up, self-important, fat cat while he was transporting some goods, and then seduce his stunning, albeit kind of clingy, daughter (okay that wasn’t on the dossier, but I like to brag). I had his transportation route mapped out ahead of time thanks to my resources in the Dimir. While he was on his journey, his carriage’s wheel hit a very large pothole (oh my! how did that get there) and shattered right in front of a modest inn. I took a guess that they would rest for the night here while his coachman and guard searched for someone who could replace the shattered wheel. You would think they would have a spare just in case, but for some odd reason it was missing. What a string of bad luck for Mr. Moneybags! After being scolded for their idiocy, the guard and coachman emptied the coach of a large chest and a… alluring piece of dark steel, and brought them into the inn trailing behind the rich man and his daughter. The two servicemen exited the inn shortly after and began arguing about whose fault it was that they were stuck here overnight with their buffoon of an employer. It was easy enough to sneak passed them during their bickering. I entered the inn, it was warm and welcoming. You would hardly expect that a robbery was about to occur. The innkeeper was behind the front counter working on a ledger, she was a burly woman with large red curls that rested just below her shoulders, she looked at me knowingly then returned her eyes back to her work. For some reason I already knew which room my mark was in, and hey guess what, I also had a key! I silently slipped my key into the door and turned it with a barely audible click. As I opened to door, I came face to face with the rich man. Fortunately for me, I took him by surprise and was able to swiftly pull my quarterstaff and land a solid sounding thump onto his skull before he could raise any alarm. He fell like a sack of mushrooms. I stepped over him (his belly being so round meant I really had to stretch) and with much effort dragged him away from the door and into the room so that I could close the door. I quickly found the chest tucked away in the closet, I picked the lock without much effort and was greeted with a large sack of coin, a small sack of gems, and the real target, some papers that I knew to be titles to some of his properties. He was on his way to place these items in a safety deposit box, but fortunately I was able to liberate these riches before he could do so. I turned to take my leave, but I was met with a brief moment of hesitation. I turn back towards to closet, and leaning up against the wall was that long, slender, dark piece of steel. It called to me, wanting me to take it, to wield it in order to enact my will as I saw fit. This weapon wasn’t part of the plan, but that doesn’t mean I can’t take a little something for myself. As my hand closed around this weapon I felt a great, dark, energy fill me. It felt as though it was part of me, as if it had always been a part of me. I great smirk crept across my face, “wicked” I muttered. And I was off, but not without stopping by one more room on my way out. Upon my return from my lucrative mission, I trained with my new weapon. It became a new driving force for my existence. Bandersnatch was right, I needed a new objective and now I have it. Knowledge and power. As I honed my abilities with my blade, I was also filled with dark powers. Being a Dimir operative has its perks, especially if it is information that you are seeking. I grew proficient with these new powers and they quickly turned me into a valuable resource within the Dimir. It had been many years since I had last heard from my first mentor, but while making a drop at one our many Dimir drop sites, I found an encoded message meant for me from Bandersnatch. It turns out that they were outed from the Izzet and that they needed someone familiar enough with the Izzet to infiltrate and observe a particular Goblin researcher named Paxlebaz. Turns out this former Goblin gangster turned Izzet researcher had the potential to become quite dangerous, but even worse was deadly brilliant. My instructions were to meet Bandersnatch at my long abandoned hovel for a more detailed briefing, and to be prepared for some long-term undercover work. As I walked down the alley to the meeting site, my pact weapon newly transformed into a silver halberd seemingly charged with electric energy in preparation for my new assignment, I glanced to the rooftops where this journey began so long ago and was filled with a sense of nostalgia and naiveté. My eyes drop to see Bandersnatch sitting in their usual spot already waiting for me. I am to go undercover as an Izzet researcher, to keep tabs on former goblin gangster, and more importantly drink a whole lot of that delightful coffee that I have been missing so much… I have a feeling that things are about to get real dramatic. To be continued…